I didn't have to let him go

[Mikim2022]

quick story about the one and only time I ever tried to enforce a boundary with literally anyone and why it's my biggest regret

my boyfriend of 22 years went on a tangent our last Christmas Eve because I had the nerve to ask him to help wrap the presents the mountain of presents I alone got for our rather large family , that kind of pissed him off but then he called from "work" (he went to "work" to avoid having to help me get ready for Christmas. you know cooking cleaning wrapping decorating staging ect) to ask me to make him dinner and I had the absolute audacity to tell him I'm swamped with chores why can't he microwave something from the fridge ...

oh he flipped his fucking wig and started demanding I pay attention to him and only him right this second OR ELSE. as he does.

well this time I'm not sure what clicked inside my head  probably all the shit I had to get done before the party but I decided I was not going to play that fucking game and I turned my phone off and just went about doing all the things . which I'm sure you all know means NUCLEAR.

he didn't come home at all that night and I didnt call him once . I figured he will come home in the morning to do the family thing with our small niece and nephew , our 20 year old daughter and my parents . he knew the children had gotten him gifts and they were excited to see him .


well you will never guess what happened. he showed up Christmas morning in a Santa hat and had presents he himself had gotten , he even got one for me !!!

lol just kidding he absolutely did not. he did what narcissists do and he absolutely GHOSTED the children. on Christmas
morning . he didn't show up at all or even call .

that was a straw I never thought would come . I silently decided I wasn't going to cover for him this time , I wouldn't make an excuse for him like I have done a thousand times. I didn't even address his absence at all .

having decided I couldn't just sit by and let my small niece and nephew be exposed to the narcissist bullshit the way my daughter had. I just couldn't watch the disappoint any more .

so first time ever in life I said to myself , we (me) are going no contact . I'm not going to accept another non apology, which in his case was asking me if I needed help with something or he'd do the whole woe is me routine that usually would make me automatically tell him to come home so I can take care of him . I didnt even answer the call.

I said , to myself , I will never speak to him again if he doesn't come correct with a REAL apology and some real self reflection knowing deep down that not only was that impossible for him to do but I had never before asked him to do that. 


anyway . so . obviously he doesn't do that , you know what he did instead of taking some responsibility for his actions that disappointed the children .. he fucking killed himself .he fucking killed himself after one single year of no contact. January 4th which is 2 days before my birthday .


he had write an email to me just before he died , it said "I'm so sorry for the way our life has been you have always taken care of me and I appreciate you so much for that , I love you "

JUST KIDDING AGAIN , it said your going to get what you always wanted . HAPPY NEW YEAR .

I miss him so very much . turns out I didn't need to change the way I handled things , I didnt need to put up any boundaries. had I just went with it the way I had always done my life would be completely in tackt. I did not have to let him die . I might never forgive myself.

sorry for the lengthy . thank you to anyone who actually reads this

cheers

[Poison Ivy]

Mikim2022, I'm sorry that you feel terrible. But you did not cause your boyfriend's death. He did. Are you getting help with your grief? Please do.

[Mikim2022]

Mikim2022, I'm sorry that you feel terrible. But you did not cause your boyfriend's death. He did. Are you getting help with your grief? Please do.

I'm not sure how could possibly be not my fault . historically when the rug brushing and offers to fix my car wasn't enough to get me to get over whatever it is he would up the stakes and get himself hurt enough to have to call from the hospital to say he needs me which triggers my care giving trauma response , but this time he went a little too far and he died .

also the email I didn't get till after he died it's very clear that it was me he had in mind therefore it's literally my fault. 

I'm just saying I did not have to let him die . I chose to punish him simply for being himself and that wasn't necessary cause the kids would have forgotten Christmas morning soon but now they remember him sadly cause he's never going to come back.

[IsleOfSong]

Mikim2022, I'm sorry that you feel terrible. But you did not cause your boyfriend's death. He did. Are you getting help with your grief? Please do.

100% agree with this. Mikim2022, I'm also sorry for how you're feeling. But you're not responsible for the behavior of another adult. Each person is ultimately in charge of how they behave. Grief counseling, as Poison Ivy suggests, may be helpful for you.

I have decided to passively aggressively hang up when she starts In on my ScapeGoat brother Bad Thing Du Jour.

I will blame the cell phone reception.  It is bad out here.

A boundary. 

I am very excited about this.  I feel a lot better.  I do not want to listen to that.  Me asking politely or changing the subject has not worked but hanging up will

Good! I would consider eventually taking it a step further and calmly state your boundary directly before hanging up, rather than using the excuse of poor cell phone reception. It's out of our comfort zone to do these things, but it's the path to our own growth, I believe. Best of luck.

[Mikim2022]

I don't struggle with guilt about my narc dying when I finally stood on principle. I don't struggle with it because I own it .

I protected him from himself for longer then I can remember. it was arbitrary of me to pick that incident it was unfair for me to not communicate and it was stupid and short sided of me to think this time would be anything other then what it always was.

I am happy hes died and not out there giving another woman what he never gave me tho . so . at least there's that silver lining .

[Rose1]

My exbpdh used to threaten suicide.
2 things, it's either a manipulation tool or they're serious. Either way it's above our pay grade to deal with. I believe calling an ambulance rather than running after them is appropriate (I didn't learn this until just before he started the same stuff with oldest d).
However someone on the site made this observation and it really helped: he is threatening suicide. You are not threatening homicide.

The reason we get so hurt by it is that we are told it is our fault. It isn't. Imo and this probably a great generalisation, is that people who use suicide or are suicidal have some bigger mental issues that need help outside our scope to help them.

On the other hand once I said I was calling the ambulance the threat stopped and he never tried it with me again. He tried it with d but she had heard my ambulance comment and said the same thing. That was also the last time he did it with her.

[Starboard Song]

I'm not sure how could possibly be not my fault.

...it's very clear that it was me he had in mind therefore it's literally my fault. 

I'm just saying I did not have to let him die . I chose to punish him simply for being himself...

First, we have to confront your feelings: whatever admixture they are of grief, guilt, and sorrow. You are absolutely right to feel sad about such terrible events. And it is oddly honorable to take responsibility for the events around us.

But no, it is not your "fault." I'm gonna go way to an extreme for an example, and try to bring it back home. John Hinckley shot Ronald Reagan because he was besotten with Jodie Foster. He had repeatedly asked Jodie Foster to love him as much as he loved her. Because he was so obsessed, he had gotten good contact information, and Jodie Foster was not merely aware of him: she had heard his voice asking her to love him. Jodie Foster did not return his love, so he shot Ronald Reagan in a bizarre effort to win her attention and love through fame.

Did Jodie Foster's decisions about exactly how to respond to his phone calls and letters lead inexorably to an assassination attempt, and James Brady's wounding? Yeah, it did. Was it literally her fault? No. When we talk about fault we are talking about moral culpability: doing something wrong.

If a bad guy orders you to do something terrible or he's going to hurt someone, you don't become literally at fault when you say no. They were at fault for setting up such a sick dilemma.

I truly respect you for your desire to fix the situation. I meant it: it is honorable to be the sort of person who takes responsibility.

But let's talk about what you did. I do not believe you are fair to yourself when you say you punished him for being himself. I am 8 years no-contact with my MIL, and that means she is 8 years without seeing her only grandson. If she hurts herself in grief I will mourn, but I will NOT be literally responsible. I did NOT punish her, not for anything.

There are two angles on this.

1. Boundaries are not punishment. They are an expression of what we will or will not do, or engage with. I had a right to no longer interact with a person reliably subjecting me and my wife to verbal abuse, and separating my family. She may "be herself" all she wants, but she MAY NOT conscript me to be a part of it. The fact that her suspected BPD is "who she is" is exculpatory for me: especially when behaviors are just "who someone is," it is time to take appropriate steps to better yourself, and exclude some people from your life. Getting on without you is their job, NOT OURS.

2. We don't have romantic relationships with almost everyone, and explain the few people reject. What we do, really, is to have romantic relationships with only a handful of people in a lifetime, and we select as best we can, from 7 billion people, the precious few that reliably fill us with joy and validation, and make us the very best we can be. Because it is such a rare thing to be selected as a partner, we owe nobody any explanation for why we choose or reject company. Jodie Foster didn't owe it to Hinkley, Lisa didn't owe it to me in 1988, and you haven't recently owed it to your boyfriend.

These are complex things, and I repeat that you are NOT WRONG to feel this way. It is right to feel "responsible," and it is honorable to accept fault. But you did nothing wrong at all. You punished nobody. You seem to have meant your no-contact. You had made a real decision about what was right for you. I know too many men who have broken their hand with an angry punch of the wall after a woman simply broke up with them, or simply said no to an invite. I personally will never ever tell the young women that were just getting by that it is literally their fault that the gentlemen they didn't like or weren't attracted to or whatever decided to punch a cinderblock because of it.

Take time to process this, but we simply must separate the mechanical facts like "I rejected him and then he did this thing" from moral statements or talk of fault and culpability. Doesn't matter much, does it? It still hurts, right? That's because you are Good person, trying to do your best and not wanting this loss and destruction. Be kind to yourself. Thank yourself for being that good. And then set this down, gently, and move forward in the months ahead. It will take a while, but you deserve to get there.

[Mikim2022]

My exbpdh used to threaten suicide.
2 things, it's either a manipulation tool or they're serious. Either way it's above our pay grade to deal with. I believe calling an ambulance rather than running after them is appropriate (I didn't learn this until just before he started the same stuff with oldest d).
However someone on the site made this observation and it really helped: he is threatening suicide. You are not threatening homicide.

The reason we get so hurt by it is that we are told it is our fault. It isn't. Imo and this probably a great generalisation, is that people who use suicide or are suicidal have some bigger mental issues that need help outside our scope to help them.

On the other hand once I said I was calling the ambulance the threat stopped and he never tried it with me again. He tried it with d but she had heard my ambulance comment and said the same thing. That was also the last time he did it with her.

to be completely fair , he never once ever threatened me with suicide. he would say I'll be getting what I want if he dies , he would say that if he dies he will leave me like a house or leave things to my family (spoiler, he didnt) but  he never said "if you don't (XYZ) I will kill myself"

I've never known him to be suicidal at all so maybe his death was actually an accident. he probably just ment to hurt himself enough to contact me without looking like I won , and he died

[Rose1]

Sadly especially with men this can happen. Try to do it but do it too well.

I think the you'll get what you want when I die is absolutely a threat. You got the message. That's manipulative.

A lot of people who mean it never talk about it at all but just do it. Btw exbpdh turns 75 this year and to my knowledge the threats continued after we split up. For all I know he's still threatening

[Mikim2022]

starboard song , thank you so much for your kind and thoughtful reply !!

you have given me a lot to think about lol!

I guess I just feel like I accepted responsibility for him ,even tho I understand how completely ridiculous that is lol

thank you again , you made some very good points and I will take those into consideration

many cheers !
kim